360bikers.com

Motorcyclist really are a social group. Rides are a nice mix of solitude and socializing that gives you the opportunity to be alone and with a group. The support you get from fellow bikers is unmatched and I know of no other group that takes care of each other as much.

After six months of riding together and growing as a group, 360Bikers had a celebration that Will has been waiting to do for a long time. More than twenty of us descended on his house bringing food and beverages to get us through the night. From 7:00 till dark we ate and socialized, meeting new members, their girlfriends and wives, and generally just having a great time. After the sun was down we watched “Wild Hogs” on an outside theater with hi-def and surround sound, courtesy of Rich. Will’s wife even let me do some grilling while she met with people and took care of other behind the scenes needs.

Vic had gone out earlier in the week and shot a small wild boar. Yes, to go along with our “Wild Hogs” movie we actually ate some wild hog. Will’s crowning moment was when he unveiled the bleached skull of the pig as the center piece of the party. Steve (”Slick”) gave some musical parodies and earned a few part recognitions in the movie. Somehow, it’ll never be the same watching that movie again.

It was a great evening with really great friends. Those that missed it should make plans for the next one.

You couldn’t ask for a better day.  We started out at Starbucks, one of our more popular meeting locations.  It’s not for the coffee, but more for the central convenience of a lot of riders, especially organizers.  We got out of there a little after 7:30 and stopped at a gas station to pick up Connie.  A couple riders had forgotten to top off and did so then.  From here, it was the concrete ribbon (Turnpike) to Snake Road.  On the Sawgrass, one of our new riders lost her Sun Pass.  It just fell out of her pocket and crumbled on the highway.

At Snake Road we stopped at the gas station, refueled those that needed it, picked up drinks and snacks, and socialized while waiting for Yarka and Mark.  After a period of talking with everyone we got underway.  The road was nice and had a more turns than your typical South Florida road.  It led us to the Seminole Reservation called Big Cypress through which we had great respect for the speed.  We zigzagged north through road changes to SR80 and then to Clewiston.

Rich, our birthday boy today, had been telling me about the nachos there.  They lived up to expectations.  The group was in rare form (thanks, Slick) and everyone seemed to have a great time.  Afterall, it doesn’t get much better than beautiful weather, great friends, great riding, and great food.

After filling ourselves we gave the others another fuel stop and then went on to South Bay to ride up to the dike on the rim of the lake.  We took pictures and rode home.  It doesn’t sound like much, but it was one of those nice, relaxing rides with lots of friends.  We had 12 bikes and 15 people on this one.  You can see photos, get screen savers, and learn more by clicking here.

[ NOTE TO SELF: US98 makes an unmarked left turn in Okeechobee]

Well, today’s ride was not what was planned. It started out sorta right. We got out of Wellington later than planned, but we were on track and did the zig-zag up to SR710 to Okeechobee. That’s about all that went right. (See note above) I missed a turn somewhere right after crossing Parrot Ave. in Okeechobee. No one else saw the sign either, but there might be one there. It’s just poorly marked where SR70 continues straight west and US98 goes off at an angle. Well, about 10 miles into it I’m suspicious because while the two roads overlapped in Okeechobee for a little while, I’m no longer seeing US98 signs. Well, it was only a 31 mile leg and I thought we couldn’t be too far off. I was wrong.

It is a nice road so we kept going and I kept looking for Arbuckle Road in the mileage vicinity that I expected. It wasn’t there. Now, due to the angle that US98 takes and the lack of angle that SR70 takes, we were now way off course. I had screwed up royally. (See not above) The group being supportive as they are rallied and we rerouted to find a way to Wauchula.

We set out on US27 towards SR66 & SR64 (The Florida Cracker Trail) to connect with the roads that lead to Wauchula. We missed again. It sucked. I felt terrible as nothing was going as planned. Everyone in the group said, “It’s fine! We’re having a good ride!” and I just felt lousy. I like things to goes as planned. I had studied the plan submitted by Sue T., who couldn’t ride due to illness. I missed one turn and it destroyed the plan. Well, other things happened, too.

First, this is the first time we have ever had a ride where every bike was a Harley-Davidson. I thought that was interesting in itself, but it actually paid off big time as we rode aimlessly trying to find a route that would get us back on track. We had three Electra Glides (2 of them Ultra’s with the 6 speed), a Dyna Glide and a Soft Tail Deluxe. Now, the Electra Glides are made for touring and typically get almost 200 miles to a tank of gas with no problem. But I wasn’t sure of the range of the other two bikes. While going across SR66 and SR64 we were approaching the 200 mile mark on our tanks. Ian’s bike had almost 230 miles since he last got fuel. I was really concerned about the other two bikes with Yarka and Mark. Long story short, we pulled into the first gas station we found ( it’s a long, desolate road) at 199 miles. I was very relieved at that success. I’m also impressed at the range that all the Harley-Davidson bikes seem to get. Sure, you can pump them up for more power and less mileage, but as a bike out of the box with just a few modifications, it rides the distance.

Well, things didn’t get much better when we tried to find a place to eat. We headed south back toward SR70 and found a Deli Cafe. Vic was really ready to eat and Ian was right there with him. But… the deli was closing. We rode west looking for the first restaurant we could find that wasn’t associated with a fast food chain. There were none! We got all the way to Arcadia before we found a place to eat. We barely made it there as they locked the doors 10 minutes after we got there. The buffet was good, home-style cooking at Boo-Boo’s. We ate and got back on the road to home. We took fast roads (SR70 to US27 to SR80) and got home with a net loss of about 3 hours. It just wouldn’t have been any fun without friends, though.

This was our first attempt at doing a class to help prepare riders for group riding. I thought it went exceptionally well. I might look at a different place to meet so we can do the oral part a little better, but our materials, examples, and explanations were good. Rich and I tagged back and forth as we went through the list of items on my clipboard and then we did the ride. I almost want to thank the cities of Wellington, Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, and Lantana for making such a great course to teach group riding.  I led the group as Rich rode tailgunner.  A relaxing ride down US441 provided our lane change exercises which went exceptionally well. We did our first real turn from US441 to Atlantic changing from a 4-lane highway to a 2-lane road. About a mile later we turned onto Hagan Ranch Rd., which is a suburban 4-lane at that point. Nice little curves and several round-abouts gave us the opportunity to practice the switch from staggered to single and back.  Then, we took a short connect on Lantana Rd.  to Lyons north to pick up Lake Worth and back to US441.  It was a great great ride. Great class. We’ll do it again for sure.

OK, again it has taken me entirely too long to post about this event.  What can I say?  It has been a busy week after a fantastic, relaxing weekend.  As I said before Leesburg Bikefest, this is one event everyone should attend.

The ride up was nice.  Ian and I rode together and stopped at Ft. Pierce for breakfast at the ever popular Waffle House.  Apparently the Denny’s there went out of business, but there’s enough customer base to have two WH’s within a half mile of each other.  From there we rode to Yeehaw Junction where we stopped to split up.  Ian was meeting a friend in Ocala and I was meeting my son north of Haines City.

I took SR60 west on what turned out to be a very nice ride.  Traffic was low and cruising between 65 and 70 was without interruption.   I got to US27 and rode towards Haines City.  In spite of being in town and the construction, the ride wasn’t bad.  The speed limits were 50 or better and the lights were spread far apart.

I pulled into a Walmart to refuel and wait for my son and his friend (following in a dune buggy) to arrive.  That was over 30 minutes, but after they got there we were soon on our way.  It’s only a short hour ride to Leesburg from there unless a biker lays one down.  Naturally, someone laid it down, but there seemed to be no life threatening injuries as we rode past the slightly damaged bike.

As we neared Leesburg bike traffic picked up rapidly.  Where we had been seeing dozens of bikes on the highway we now say only a few dozen cages!  It was bikes everywhere and it sounded great.  Riding US27 with its hills into Leesburg let us know there was good riding around.

We spent the day doing the carnival acts.  We looked at vendors, the Rats Hole for bikes and babes, listened to some really good bands, and just looked at bikes and people.  We met friends and made some, too.  We ate some pretty good road food and had a beer or two.

By 5:00 I was really getting antsy.  It was hot in the parking lots and I wanted to ride to cool off.  Now, David (the dune buggy guy) had to ride bitch with Wes to get over to Main Street.  Wes didn’t like the ride so I humbled to give him a ride back to his buggy.  Then, the three of us road our respective vehicles our through the villages.  It was nice and peaceful riding the back roads and through the golf course developments.  We topped off the tanks and headed back to the hotel.

After dark the old fart (me) decided it had been a long day.  I was up at 5:00 AM and rode 4 hours to meet them before they leisurely came along so I was pretty tired.  The young guys wanted to go downtown to party and I bid them good night.  They came back sometime in the night and had a few good stories, but nothing remarkable.

Sunday was great.  We started after checkout with a gourmet breakfast at the Golden Corral.  Not bad!  Then, riding out we split up as they had to attend a Rotary benefit bowling thing and I had to check out my proposed ride for the way home.  I was the winner on this one.  I rode out through hills and took a few “wrong turns” to see what was there.  I had beautiful curves and fantastic vistas.  Yeah, I said vistas in Florida!  There was one spot high on a hill where I could see for literally 30 to 40 miles.   There was one hill that went up, dipped, went up a little more and then crested to a 45-degree incline straight down about 400 yards to a traffic circle out in the middle of nowhere.  I rode past lakes and homes and was so anxious to take everyone on the route that I hooked back after I hit SR50.

I haven’t finished working on the videos for this trip.  I have an avi file that is over 6 GB that I have to bring home somehow to edit.  The ride home with friends was great even though we compromised to the turnpike to get home before dark.  It was a great weekend and I hope to see more of our riders on it next year.  It’s that good.

Negligence of writing here has been a bad habit of mine lately. Last week we had a great ride and over 60 photos posted on the meetup site. It was relaxing and when I got back I just zoned out. There’s been a lot on the plate lately.

Today, we had a ride that Rich came up with quite awhile ago. It’s about time we actually did the ride and it proved to be everything he said it would be. We started at the Harley-Davidson store in West Palm Beach. It’s a common meeting place for our group because it’s right off I-95 and makes it easy for all our riders to get there in time. We left at 8:30 as scheduled and headed towards Okeechobee, another standard leg that we do on many rides. Once there, we kept on US98 north and started the route we hadn’t done before in our group. After moving north awhile, we hit back roads that took us west to Punta Gorda. It was a nice, relaxing ride on country roads We rode into the Fisherman’s Village area and to the restaurant on the water where we had a nice lunch with friends.

As food went, it wasn’t that great. The key was the location. On the water we watched catamarans and yachts cruise by as we ate, drank, and talked with our friends. We had a superb waitress who dazzled us with her incredible memory (she took no notes with orders for 13 people and never slipped once!) and had a nice lunch in general. This Fisherman’s area has several buildings with shops in it and we walked through it after lunch. Trudy and Mark were taken captive by a store and finally escaped so we could leave.

Keep in mind that we’ve traveled about 150 miles to get there and now have a bit over that to get home. Weather played games with us on the way up and wasn’t done with us for the ride home. Rich led us to the roads he planned for the way back and everyone was very pleased with this part of the trip. It was great. Winding back roads with forests, estates, and great views all the way back. We even saw a gator sitting by the corner at one turn. The roads took us all the way into La Belle. This is a route we’ll work into a ride again. It was just to good to not revisit.

On the way back there was an edginess in the group. I’m not sure why. It could have been the occasional spritz we had or the major rains that surrounded us as we rode the last leg home. After Clewiston we hit some rain in Belle Glade, but all in all, it wasn’t bad at all. It turned out to be a great day for a great ride. If you can’t get wet, you can’t really ride… especially in South Florida.

We had a new rider, Guz, who came on his 1200 Sportster. This was a tough ride to start with our group, especially on the Sporty, but he did a great job. It was great that with 8 bikes we actually had 3 occupied by couples. I think that’s pretty cool and everyone was great. Connie was our only female bike rider as the other girls didn’t make it. It was a great group that rode tighter than our group usually does. Our group is growing and so are our rides. The quality and planning is paying off as we near 80 members.

When we first came up with the idea of doing the ride around the Lake backwards it seemed like a simple idea that wasn’t anything significant.  But that ride was one of the most successful we ever had and it introduced a path through which we can combine day rides with our Treasure Coast friends.  It turned out to be a great idea and became called the Okeechobee Reverse for doing the ride around Lake Okeechobee counterclockwise.

Today we repeated the ride for the first time with great results.  I was pleasantly surprised to see Andre and Dawn riding with us today.  Leaving the Harley-Davidson shop just after 9:00 we headed out to the Beeline Highway (SR710) as a fog dissipated a few hundred feet above us.   The cool air made for an exceptional ride as we entered Martin County with 6 bikes and 8 riders.  We passed a grove and the air was briefly thick with the smell of orange blossoms.  The ride to Okeechobee was perfect except for a short period behind a slow farm vehicle.

We arrived at Pogey’s right on time and I found Yarka had left a message on my cell phone.  Her group had arrived at the Harley shop a bit late and missed us.  They took advantage of the detailed instructions we post for every trip and were on their way.  We were also expecting the Treasure Coast group to meet us there.  We occupied the back wall of the restaurant with two tables and a booth waiting for overflow.  Shortly after we ordered our food John’s group showed up with bikes and riders.  Within minutes, Yarka, Mark and their friends from Europe arrived rounding us to 19 people on 14 bikes for the remainder of our ride.

A group that size is hard to manage sometimes.  The slightest gap and another vehicle splits the group, making it hard to work together.  It happened and we actually rode over 20 miles as two groups separated by a van.  When we finally connected it looked great to see the line of bikes stretch out behind me.  We rode through Moore Haven and on to Clewiston where we stopped for fuel and a refreshing drink.  It was in the high 80’s, but when we were riding it was pleasant.

This ride ended around 2:30 for those in our area as our Treasure Coast friends headed north to beat the occasional thunderstorm as they formed.  The ride couldn’t have been better executed.  I hope you’re on our next ride for the Okeechobee Reverse.  You can see more photos by joining our riding group.  Just click here.

The obstacles of creating a charitable foundation are many.  Still, I seem to continue on this endeavor to create something that benefits our fellow bikers in a time of need.  One focus of this project is the 360Bikers USA Grand Tour and the six regional tours that work with it.  There will also be many local tours supporting the regional tours.

First, I should briefly explain these rides.  The Grand Tour is a 10,600-mile ride around the United States in 29 days.  Inside this monster circle are six regional rides from about 2,000 miles to 3,000 miles that each take about a week.  These rides will coincide with the Grand Tour for part of the region.  The local rides are managed by local dealers and ride part of a single day with the regional ride.  These obviously connect with the Grand Tour at some points, too.

So, aside from the charitable efforts of these rides, what would one expect to see?  Well, that’s part of the beauty of this event.  It covers a lot of ground and riders will see different things depending on the level of participation.  I’ll use the Grand Tour to emphasize some of the highlights.

Starting in Key West, Florida the ride begins with a stretch through the islands and across 7-Mile Bridge.  Riding the east coast of Florida, we stop for lunch in Daytona Beach, home to Biketoberfest and Bike Week.  The second day culminates at Arlington Cemetery in Washington, D.C. to pay respect to our veterans of all wars.  A planned stop on the third day includes Rockefeller Center with an appearance on a morning show.  If possible, we’ll have lunch with the guys from OCC, but that hasn’t been arranged at this time.  The fourth day takes us into Boston, Massachusetts for a little while, but by the end of the day we leave the country as we enter Canada for part of the ride.  Day five tags the second point of the USA Four Corners Ride (another sanctioned ride you can participate in as you do the 360Bikers Grand Tour) and then rides back into Canada as we move through Quebec and back into New York at Plattsburgh.  Day 6 is a scenic ride through Adirondack State Park, a forest ride that exits to the Finger Lakes region and on to Buffalo.  The first week ends with a ride to Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and then on to Dearborn, Michigan.

Our second week takes us to Chicago on the first day and gives the second day off to enjoy the area.  The week continues on the tenth day as we ride into Harley-Davidson country in Wisconsin on our way to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  The eleventh day visits Mt. Rushmore and stops in famous Sturgis for dinner.  Day twelve rides across Wyoming to Yellowstone National Park.  Day thirteen begins with a leisurely ride on one of two routes through this great park and then into Montana for some exciting rides in the mountains.  Day fourteen concludes the second week with incredible scenery as we pass through the spectacular mountains of Washington on our way to Seattle.

Recognizing you might be tired or want to enjoy this great part of the country, day fifteen is a day off for riders.  Day sixteen hits the third corner of the 4 Corners USA ride and then doubles back along the Pacific Northwest into Oregon.  The seventeenth day enters Redwood National Park and ends at Ft. Bragg, California at the top of the infamous Pacific Coast Highway.  The eighteenth day rides along the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco where I’m working on a special reception.  The nineteenth day continues along the ocean route through the country of movie stars and ends at Ventura.  Excitement builds as we wind through Greater Los Angeles and end at San Ysidro, California, the southwestern most point in the USA.  If you did the 4-Corners USA sanctioned ride at the same time, you just finished it!  Our 21^st day begins our ride across the desert scenery as we aim towards Tucson, Arizona.  That three weeks of riding and seeing a lot of America.

Week four has many great events as we ride across southern USA.  It begins quietly riding across Texas in areas where you won’t see a major city.  This is the old west with a concrete ribbon to ride on.  The twenty-third day we ride to San Antonio and take the twenty-fourth day off to rest and enjoy local riding opportunities.  The twenty-fifth day rides into Louisiana and visits the French Quarter of New Orleans before riding to Mobile, Alabama.  The twenty-seventh day runs back into Florida as we ride along the coast to Tampa.  Exiting Tampa on the twenty-eighth day as we move across the famous Skyline Bridge and down to Coconut Grove in Miami.  From here, it’s just a leisurely ride back along the Florida Keys as we return to Key West on our twenty-ninth day in preparation for the end-of-ride banquet.

This ride promises to be a fantastic view of the United States and sets the standard for future rides with 360Bikers.  I hope some of you can join us for this great ride or at least one of the regional rides.  You can be assured I’ll write more about this in the future.